Get ready for a good scare

Ah, October is here at last. I think the fall months are my favorite, as they bring with them the beautiful changes in the leaves’ colors — along with the unfortunate business of raking them up as they drop from the trees — and let us know the holiday season is coming up.

Don’t worry, this isn’t going to be a column about Christmas, which for some unfortunate reason seems to get closer year after year; I’m actually expecting to be able to purchase fireworks and Christmas decorations from the same shelves by 2020.

No, I wanted to write about my favorite month out of the dozen — October. I think it stems from my childhood, when myself and a few other neighborhood kids who treasured Halloween more than Thanksgiving, Christmas or even birthdays. It was a time for us to be someone — or something — different for the evening, and be rewarded for our courage against the night with candy, or even better, some of Mrs. Lorenzini’s home. Word spread quickly of those houses that were stocking the good stuff — full-size candy bars and bottles of soda — and which ones to avoid, whose owners waited with a bowl of not candy, but — of all things — pennies.

The love of Halloween and a good scare is something that stretched to a year-round thing for me and my brothers. Oh, how we’d entice our neighborhood friends to take a trip though our homemade haunted houses, always a bit more dangerous than they should’ve been, looking back, with the promise of candy at the end. Peeled grapes and cold spaghetti were nothing compared to some of the devices we came up with.

Years went on, and I never stopped wanting to dress up for Halloween. Of course, the taste in costumes got a little different, going from wizards and Yoshi to Hunter S. Thompson, Riff Raff and Pennywise the Dancing Clown (this one even scared some adults). My first years of parenthood got me back into the cutesy stuff though, being a Cubby to my son’s Jake, so I’m pretty excited to turn him into one of the classic movie monsters — a vampire. Thank goodness he’s too young to know what Twilight is.

So, it feels like the torch is officially getting passed now, much like it came to me from my parents, who always took advantage of an opportunity to scare me (yes, even into the college years). So, this year, as in the past, this month for me is a time to get some good — safe — scares in, and to remember where my love for all those creepy, crawly bumps in the night came from. It seems almost fitting, then, that my father passed away this month four years ago, and among the great memories he left with me was a love of a good scare.

So, those of you looking for some fun this October, don’t discredit the effects of simple things like spaghetti, grapes and gelatin, put some creativity into a homemade haunted house for your friends and family, watch some of those classic Halloween flicks, but always try to keep things safe, and maybe just a bit scary.